My Dear Hoosiers,
This is why you need me.
However pretty your flowers may be, I can think of no circumstances where it's appealing to accent your garden with a used (ewww!) toilet.
I’m here to stage an intervention. You need to hear the truth about your addiction to ornate lawn ornamentation and how this kind of visual pollution is making me feel.
I’m not usually this openly critical, but you need to hear the truth. Ninety-nine percent of your lawn ornaments are ugly, borderline grotesque, and you’re not just hurting yourself, you’re hurting everyone close to you.
There is nothing retro cool about granny fannies or hot pink flamingos—they’re cheesy—they’re campy—they’ve got to go.
Ornately ornamenting your landscape is an iconic symbol of trash culture, and although I’m willing to overlook your obsession with NASCAR, I just can’t turn my back and let you defile what little natural beauty you have left.
Surely, Michelangelo’s ghost would be enraged if he saw pint-size quasi-replicas of his masterpieces being peed on by labradoodles in the yards of cookie-cutter homes all across Indiana. This is the very reason that I don’t believe in ghosts, but if I’m wrong, you’d better be praying to your lawn Jesus that the maddened spirits of real artists spare you and your poor taste.
Lawn porn. Umm... Gross.
Yards are not supposed to be extensions of coffee tables; they are supposed to be transition landscapes. I just happen to know a thing or two about creating outdoor landscapes that serve to blur the frontier between the natural and built environment.
There is nothing even remotely natural about armies of lawn gnomes guarding purple gazing balls perched on dolphin pedestals.
I understand that this will be a difficult transition for you, so I’m recommending step one to get you started down the road to recovery. If you have an object in your yard that is any color that you’d find in a bag of tropical skittles, a lifeless version of an otherwise live animal, is created through the process of polymerization, or is in the act of squatting, peeing, or mooning… it’s gotta go. (To the dumpster that is—not to next weekend’s yard sale—that would be counterproductive since you know Bobby Jean has her eye on your sunbathing gopher.)
If you really can’t eliminate all of the flamboyant bad taste from your life, please, for the sake of your caring neighbors, i.e. myself, at least try to confine your kitschy “art” to your toilet mantle and other confined spaces.
If you are still in a state of denial and you’re harboring any of the following items, please contact me for further consultation and personal support. I am here for you.
Oh, and just for the record, I completely support lawn ornament theft. Even by teenagers who drink a wee too much Boone’s Farm and steal Granny’s polka dotted mushrooms for their closet collections. I’m fine with it.
And to all you non-Midwesterners who continue to give me crap for living in Indiana, (you know who you are)… clearly, they need me here.
The Midwest isn’t the only place yard art takes a turn for the worst.
You’d love the front yard in a nearby village – 10 toilets with plastic flowers.
How about cast iron bath tubs set on end with a statue of Mary inside. Got to love those shrines :)
And of course the standard assortment of discarded appliances often dot the yards in the area.
Or old tires set on the lawn and used as a planters for annuals.
I have seen some crazy stuff in my time…but NEVER a toilet!
Lawn porn! Now you’ve gone and made me snort hot coffee through my nose. I am with you. What’s the point of beautifying your landscape with flowers if you’re going to put trash out there too. Happens in Maine too. But I think here it’s like thumbing the local nose at People From Away: You can’t take our sense of humor, then hit 95 going south.
Saw a house recently that had not one but probably a dozen toilets as ornaments. Unfortunately I did not have my camera with me. Though to be honest I am more offended by things like statues of deer and other creatures that we work hard to eradicate and then we memorials to them
[...] I came across this hilarious article posted by Annie on From this Dirt [...]
Annie-
First it was the peony remark in the last entry and now you are targeting my precious gnomes? You are crushing me! Perhaps I do need an intervention, but I believe your sister has also given me a gnome as a birthday present before. I love camp and kitsch. :p And the best garden I have ever seen was the Gnome Reserve in Devon, UK. Perhaps you need a visit there to loosen you up: http://www.gnomereserve.co.uk/ :)
p.s. I did love this entry.
Wiseacre—Toilets with plastic flowers? Double fault. Uggh.
Dirt Princess—Consider yourself (and your neighborhood) blessed.
June—Sorry about the coffee mishap:) You make an excellent point about the humor in lawn ornamentation that I do have respect for. I’ve spent a lot of time in Maine and your line “you can’t take our sense of humor, then hit 95 going south” is awesome. Completely plausible.
Christine—Thanks for mentioning this story on your blog. I appreciate the traffic. I completely agree about the irony of deer statues. Might as well sprinkle plastic replicas of Japanese beetles all over your garden.
Alison—I’m going to cut you some slack because I think you get it. You know your gnomes are campy, but you appreciate kitsch as a sentimental art form. I still think they’re crass and don’t want them in my yard, but I respect differing artistic points of view. I think peonies and gnomes would go great together… sentimental, overabundant and melodramatic!
I just purchased a plastic heron for my neighbors yard… ONLY because a REAL heron was eating her koi out of the fish pond. You’ll be relived to know they may not need it, as her husband has installed motion-sensor-water-cannons to scare any potential fish poachers. I am not kidding about the water cannons…
(ps-also love this post)
For the most part I agree with you (and DEFINITELY on the topic of gnomes gettin’ their freak on) but I confess to an odd weakness for pink flamingos.
Great post! As much as I agree with you in principle, there are legitimate uses for such things. As soon as I saw the title, I thought of that mooning garden gnome. When we first bought our house, our neighbor had garden gnomes up at head level on posts all over their yard. They were right outside our windows! I didn’t hear about the mooning gnome until the neighbor was gone, but it would have been the perfect retaliation to point at their window!
One of my friends was going to pick up her half sister who was coming in from Thailand to live with her in her new house. While she was going to the airport, I put a bunch of plastic turkeys (like flamingos) all over her front lawn. It was a wicked prank, I know, but that’s just how I roll.
Beegirl: Those water cannons are quite effective. Do the plastic herons really keep out the real ones? If you want some less obtrusive pond protection, there is an awesome little solar device for keeping out nocturnal predators (night herons, raccoons, etc.) without adding so much ugly to your yard.
I think your stat is a bit high. I think there is also a feeling among some gardeners that hate living on main thoroughfares and take their revenge in that fashion.
I also find more people with minimal plantings have the stupidest lawn “art” the multitude of “gardener bottom in the air” wood cut outs I’ve only really seen at houses that only have a foundation bed.
I can only agree (in theory) I have two flamingos in my yard and they never fail to make me smile! Their tackiness is exactly what I love about them. I do agree however, that too much of a good thing is Too much! Some people don’t know when to stop, but a touch of whimsy in any yard is kind of fun.
Great post. I’m with you! But thieving such ‘lawn art’ here in the country might mean some buckshot to the backside!
Late, late, late post here. But hey, I just discovered your blog, AND I must comment – I can’t help myself because…
My first husband was born and raised in Indiana. The first time I’d ever seen lawn “art” (as he’d called it) was when I went to visit his home state for the first time. That’s just not done here in California – you could always tell the “transplants” (i.e. midwesterners) when they moved into a neighborhood. We’d just giggle – no one frowned, I think.
Thanks again for yet another wonderful story!
Things are getting worse. Check out this article in the L.A. Times.
They have a photo up there that will haunt your dreams.